Consumers and organizations increasingly rely on digitally-stored data. As the cost of digital data storage decreases and the reliance on digitally-stored data increases, file systems may manage ever greater amounts of data. These file systems may allocate and/or deallocate storage space from storage systems as needed.
Because the same storage space can be reused over time (e.g., deallocated after a prior use and reallocated for a new use), some allocation schemes may allow access to old data (e.g., meant to have been deleted) through new allocations. For example, when a file is deleted from a file system, the storage blocks underlying the file may be deallocated from the file, but the contents of the storage blocks may remain intact. Subsequently, one or more of these storage blocks may be pre-allocated to a new file of a predetermined size. Unfortunately, in some cases this data may be sensitive. Even though access to the original file may have been restricted, the sensitive data may become accessible via the newly pre-allocated file.
Some traditional file systems may attempt to prevent such data leaks by overwriting pre-allocated storage blocks (e.g., with zeroed data). Unfortunately, overwriting the pre-allocated storage blocks may be time- and resource-intensive, especially in the case of pre-allocating storage blocks for very large files. Furthermore, future read operations directed to these files may consume significant computing resources. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for securing storage space.